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| Hiking | 4.00 Miles |
1,231 AEG |
| | Hiking | 4.00 Miles | 3 Hrs | | 1.33 mph |
| 1,231 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | Thought I'd hit up a nice easy hike on a trail for a change...
Took the long drive in via FR 650 since it's been a while since I've traveled the upper section. A week after the last set of storms and these mountains are draining water from every pore. Crossed countless creeks along the way. There's a tree blocking the road at the 5 mile coral. So you have to drive through three or four gates through the corals. I thought for sure this would thin out the crowds... not! passed three convoys on route to the trailhead. The upper road was slightly icy but it'll be gone in a day with the temps rising.
Took off without clue as to where the trail started. Being an "easy" day I didn't bring a map and cut back on the waypoints I uploaded into the GPS. Took about ten minutes to figure out the first waypoint in the distance. Later realized I was on the West Pinto Trail #212.
Shortly up the trail you come upon Rogers Spring which is the source for the well known "Rogers Trough" that the trailhead is named after, but you best steer clear... Ron Feldman attained permission in a wilderness of all places to dig into what he wishes to prove to be an old spanish mine.
The trail goes 600 feet up and over a saddle on the southeast side of Iron Mountain. Then drops 400 feet down to Iron Mountain Spring before heading 300 feet back up to a north dropping ridge. Pretty simple eh! Thus far anyhow...
At a bend in the trail as it takes on the ridge you need to pick up an old loop that forks left. Basically in only another 0.15 miles and 100 feet up you come to a saddle. Well, I couldn't find the friggin trail. I passed it by a quarter mile, came back, went the other way and back again. This so called trail I was looking for just didn't seem to exist.
Finally I decided to set path to the next waypoint and swim through the thickest manzanita/scrub oak I ever laid eyes on other than the southern PCT in Cali! It's not so bad, right... manzanita isn't prickly. GEEES US, talk about a bad idea. After nearly an HOUR of solid fighting my arms and shins couldn't take much more, not to mention I'd only conquerred 0.15 miles!
I made it to a gate through a fence at the 5473 saddle. I took a break(kind of a rare thing for myself) and pondered thoughts of the effort it took to put up this fence out in the middle of nowhere. I mean this puppy wasn't put up anytime in the last 40 years. Do you think the manzanita was here in this proportion back then? Not to mention, what are they fencing off... the manzanita on the east from the west. Certainly not cows, you couldn't push a cow through this stuff unless there was a bulldozer on his pumpkin.
At the gate, I realized there sort of was a trail leading up to this point that I totally missed. With that in mind I looked ahead and kind of made out a possible trail from the mid 1900's. So I headed out into what turned out to be much easier to negotiate than the manzanita stuff I'd been through. However, about five minutes into that I decided I didn't want to do this for what might be a mile.
I headed back. The gate came quick and I was excited to take the actual trail back to West Pinto #212. Though noticeable it was still overgrown. I found crawling to be the best option for many sections.
I don't know the true story but I assume the forest service stopped maintaining this trail back in the 80's or 70's. |
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